Ask me about running my country straight into the ground every time I play EU4 multiplayer.

What is Hitman?
Hitman is a series of video games (and awful films) based around assassinating targets in large non linear levels in various creative ways, you can be that sloppy dick who just mows everyone down with guns or try being the perfect assassin by making it look like a accident.
It's about to launch it's next title, just named Hitman, next month while the beta will be launching next week.

Previous titles

Hitman Agent 47

Unfortunately, I can't really say much about this game since it's aged like utter shite and plays really horribly. I really wouldn't pick this one up, for any reason. Steam link

Hitman 2

The second installment in the series and one that hasn't aged like crap, it's the game which really took the series off.
It's still fairly fun to play although it has some pretty awful missions mid way through. It's also lacking compared to the later games, so be warned if you play Blood Money or Contracts beforehand. Steam link

Hitman: Contacts

Didn't really add anything new but instead looked to improve on the previous game. It's certainly worth playing today and has some of the most memorable levels in the franchise.
It also has one badass soundtrack courtesy of the awesome Jesper Kyd. Steam link

Before you buy it though, do this:

Dark_Swordmaster posted:

The Steam version of Contracts is FINALLY back (after licensing issues with one of my favorite bands, Clutch) but it has a gamebreaking bug in that IT HAS NO SAVE FOLDER! But this is fix-able. Navigate to your Contracts directory (Steam/Steamapps/common/Hitman Contracts/) and just create a new folder called "save". Done, now the game will properly save and you can stop restarting from step one like it's an NES title.

Hitman: Blood Money

Considered to be the best game in the series by pretty much everyone. While, like contracts, it didn't add gently caress tons of new mechanics, it again continued to improve on the formula of the series, it also allows the player
to buy and upgrade weapons alongside several items to bring in the mission beforehand. It's the game with (currently, until the new game comes) the biggest and most diverse levels with tons of stuff to do in all of them. It's fairly long too. Buy it. Steam link

Hitman: Absolution

Eh, this one is certainly the black sheep of the series. It pretty much changed the game from the traditional sandbox experience into something closer to say, splinter cell. It's linear as hell and has pretty small levels.
As a stealth game on its own it's fairly decent to be honest, but it's complete poo poo at being Hitman. However, it did introduce contracts mode (selecting NPCs in levels for people to kill in certain ways) which is awesome although completely wasted here. Steam link

Hitman

The upcoming game everyone's curious about. It's going to be episodic, the first part launching in march. Also contracts mode is back and improved! Steam link

FAQ

Episodic...? Beta? Intro pack...? What the gently caress is going on?

Good question! IO Interactive have decided to go episodic with each level, if you pre order the intro pack you'll be getting the prologue mission, which is the beta out this month and the paris fashion show mission, which is out in march.
The intro pack will be rather cheap, around 15$ and is meant to be seen as a taster for what's to come. After this they will release a mission every month until they are done, they claim this is so every level is "worthy" of Hitman.
If you don't want to bother with all this poo poo you can buy the full experience for 60$ and wait until the game's finished, you'll also be getting every episode as it comes out. It's certainly bloody strange doing it this way but we'll see how it ends up.

Okay, that sounds weird as hell, but is the game going to be closer to traditional Hitman or Absolution?

The game is certainly way closer to old school Hitman, it's back to minimal plot and just focuses on you killing some poor dickhead in the biggest levels yet. It's certainly looking to be the most ambitious Hitman in terms of level design and scale.
However the disguise system is closer to Absolution bu-

WHAT! But the disguise system is complete dogshit in that game! Why?

Chill. It's been modified so it's way more reasonable while adding some sense of challenge. How it works now is that disguises will have certain people who can see through them, for example if you dress up as a chef, some other chefs (not all chefs though) may be able
to see through it and realize you're not actually on the team and call you out. Also sometimes the target will be guarded by the head of security, this dude knows all of his guards by memory and will be able to sniff you out if you get too close while dressed as a security guard.

I will not shut up about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I talk about them all the time and work them into every conversation. I actually named my daughter after the Pink ranger and will provide proof if challenged.

Best missions in the francise opinions:

1) The weird fetish party in Contracts

3) Kill Hugh Hefner analogue during party infiltration

3) Paris Opera House assassination

EDIT: The Vegas one was loving amazing as well, I'd forgotten it totally! Particularly the magic show gone awry.

Worst Mission:

1) Snowstormy Japan one with ninjas and snipers

Dandywalken fucked around with this message at Feb 10, 2016 around 00:39

The most hilariously bad part of this mission is when Ninjas would hit each other with trucks, find the body, then blame you for the death. This seemed to happen every time I tried to do a Silent Assassin run.

Anyway, this game seems to have had quite a bit of retooling. I remember at one point people said it would be open world, but now it isn't? I hope not, I'm burnt out on open world and I think Hitman benefits from denser rather than larger environments.

The most hilariously bad part of this mission is when Ninjas would hit each other with trucks, find the body, then blame you for the death. This seemed to happen every time I tried to do a Silent Assassin run.

Anyway, this game seems to have had quite a bit of retooling. I remember at one point people said it would be open world, but now it isn't? I hope not, I'm burnt out on open world and I think Hitman benefits from denser rather than larger environments.

Nah, it's not open world. The levels are just big. Really big and really dense too.

It's me. I am the goon that really liked Absolution. The shooting and the shooting all felt like an improvement. It added a bunch of poo poo that the series really needed and I am thankful that we got it rather than them pretty much making another game just like Blood Money.

I enjoyed Blood Money and Contracts, have no interest in 1 and 2. I gave Absolution a fair shake and while I could see the potential for it to be a good successor to Blood Money, it just completely shat the bed and I got bored with it.

Best mission is A New Life.

I've been jonesing for some more Blood Money type games (Which there is sadly barely any) for years now so I'm looking forward to new Hitman. Episodic could work with Hitman because really I always saw the missions as standalone levels to begin with and couldn't give less of a poo poo about the plot, which was never the reason to play them. Also everything I've seen about new Hitman looks like an actual evolution of Blood Money with some of the additions that worked from Absolution like an improved cover system.

Accordion Man fucked around with this message at Feb 11, 2016 around 00:13

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the Direct of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame the joy of Sakurai?

I hated how maybe 4 missions in Absolution were actually assassination themed and the rest were just stealth-infused 3rd person shooter poo poo. It was a good game but not a great Hitman game at all. It's good to see how they're going back to the basics and creating huge playgrounds to mess with this time.

I preordered the Intro pack for about ten bux because why not, comes with beta access and enough content to decide whether to drop more monies on the rest of the content. Cautiously optimistic, hoping the FPS is at least solid on the PS4. Will probably post impressions when the console beta drops on Friday.

I hated how maybe 4 missions in Absolution were actually assassination themed and the rest were just stealth-infused 3rd person shooter poo poo. It was a good game but not a great Hitman game at all. It's good to see how they're going back to the basics and creating huge playgrounds to mess with this time.

I preordered the Intro pack for about ten bux because why not, comes with beta access and enough content to decide whether to drop more monies on the rest of the content. Cautiously optimistic, hoping the FPS is at least solid on the PS4. Will probably post impressions when the console beta drops on Friday.

People always say this while ignoring that the first two Hitman games had plenty of levels where the goal wasn't to actually kill anyone. Maybe they aren't similar to Blood Money in that way, but they still fit the Hitman mold.

Chill. It's been modified so it's way more reasonable while adding some sense of challenge. How it works now is that disguises will have certain people who can see through them, for example if you dress up as a chef, some other chefs (not all chefs though) may be able
to see through it and realize you're not actually on the team and call you out. Also sometimes the target will be guarded by the head of security, this dude knows all of his guards by memory and will be able to sniff you out if you get too close while dressed as a security guard.

No, unless that's different on the higher difficulties in Blood Money or something, once you were in a disguise no one suspected you unless you went into an area that your disguise didn't have enough clearance for.

I do like the addition of supervisor type enemies that can see through you so long as its not like Absolution where you had to constantly cover your face like a dumbass.

Accordion Man fucked around with this message at Feb 11, 2016 around 00:50

People always say this while ignoring that the first two Hitman games had plenty of levels where the goal wasn't to actually kill anyone. Maybe they aren't similar to Blood Money in that way, but they still fit the Hitman mold.

That's true, though Blood Money/Contracts have become the status quo for what "should" be now in terms of having all these Contract options and big spaces. Absolution had stuff like the Chinatown level but then sometimes railroaded you into very specific things, like turning on the generator switches in the hospice escape.

That's true, though Blood Money/Contracts have become the status quo for what "should" be now in terms of having all these Contract options and big spaces. Absolution had stuff like the Chinatown level but then sometimes railroaded you into very specific things, like turning on the generator switches in the hospice escape.

Maybe, but Contracts was still linear as hell and even has a mission that has no assassination target. I think Blood Money has kind of blinded a lot of people into thinking that it was what the series has been about all along, but a look at the past games shows that is not the case at all. It has always had its wide open levels mixed with linear levels.

The only times that the disguise systems haven't been absolute dogshit is Hitman 1 and Hitman Blood Money. Hitman 2 would easily bug out on you and the same went for Contracts at times. At least in Hitman 1, they never got suspicious as long as you weren't armed when your role called for it and didn't wander into the wrong area.

Maybe, but Contracts was still linear as hell and even has a mission that has no assassination target. I think Blood Money has kind of blinded a lot of people into thinking that it was what the series has been about all along, but a look at the past games shows that is not the case at all. It has always had its wide open levels mixed with linear levels.

The only times that the disguise systems haven't been absolute dogshit is Hitman 1 and Hitman Blood Money. Hitman 2 would easily bug out on you and the same went for Contracts at times. At least in Hitman 1, they never got suspicious as long as you weren't armed when your role called for it and didn't wander into the wrong area.

Yes. I could never go back to the first three games, because of said disguises being worthless and the bad bugs in missions. Contracts would have been an awesome improvement for the franchise, except the disguises failed so often and levels decided to game over for reasons I still don't understand. The nuclear bomb disarming mission involved me wearing what I think was a SWAT uniform and after getting instantly discovered several times, made it with the team to the end of the mission, and I pulled out the M-4 to better fit in with the group. The sight of a dozen friendlies shooting me and the nuke going off a second later, should have been reason enough to give up on Contracts.
The last mission had me sneak in the open and getting random game overs for not going in front or behind the next group of people correctly. It was a confusing game.

People always say this while ignoring that the first two Hitman games had plenty of levels where the goal wasn't to actually kill anyone. Maybe they aren't similar to Blood Money in that way, but they still fit the Hitman mold.

What really got me about Absolution is the plot and the tone of the game in general, its just so dumb and in the most obnoxious in your face kind of way. I won't pretend that the series has ever been high art, but I think one of the reasons that I ended up liking Blood Money so much was that they had the intelligence to shove the main story into the background and instead focus on mostly unrelated missions that wildly varied in setting and character. You get a bit of a briefing as to why your killing a sheikh in Vegas or whatever and away you go, if you're observant you might notice little quirks like the fact that in till death do us part its clearly the bride who has organised the assassination of her own husband and father on her wedding day as well as the targets in the previous level. In Absolution on the other hand you've got a shitload of garish, ugly cutscenes filled with garish, ugly characters in a garish, ugly game that you can't ignore since it contextualizes all the stupid poo poo your doing. Instead of a day in the life of 47 on the job you've got this nonsense about him trying to rescue a teenage schoolgirl he's inexplicably grown attached to from the good ol' boys while you wander around the most boring parts of middle America. Also Kane and Lynch show up to rub salt on the wound.

I'm ambivalent about the episodic nature but the new game looks like a return to what the series is good at, more globetrotting, glamorous missions taking down high profile targets in big, complex, heavily populated, open ended environments without getting too hung up on lovely grind-house level plots.

Nah, it's not open world. The levels are just big. Really big and really dense too.

"Streets of Hope" is not a good stage for size comparison. Sure, it was a "big" stage in Hitman Absolution, but it was small compared to a lot of the stages of Blood Money.

I find the episodic choice and constant changes in "How the game is released"TM somewhat worrying. I think Square-Enix will use it as an excuse to pull development if sales aren't high enough/stay consistent/stay consistently high. The last thing I want is to be left with half a Hitman game.

"Streets of Hope" is not a good stage for size comparison. Sure, it was a "big" stage in Hitman Absolution, but it was small compared to a lot of the stages of Blood Money.

It makes sense when you remember the marketing for the new Hitman is centered around convincing people it's not going to be like Absolution. I remember watching the big walkthrough video for the fashion show level a while ago and it was basically one long explanation about how similar the game was to Blood Money and nothing at all like Absolution.

"Streets of Hope" is not a good stage for size comparison. Sure, it was a "big" stage in Hitman Absolution, but it was small compared to a lot of the stages of Blood Money.

The level size looks at least as large as Blood Money and I'm happy with that. Besides, massive levels aren't really intrinsically a good thing, one of the best levels in BM, A New Life, is one of the smallest ones.

It makes sense when you remember the marketing for the new Hitman is centered around convincing people it's not going to be like Absolution. I remember watching the big walkthrough video for the fashion show level a while ago and it was basically one long explanation about how similar the game was to Blood Money and nothing at all like Absolution.

The survey they sent for the alpha a while back was basically a bunch of "hey how good did you think Blood Money was". I'm hopeful but they were pretty much outright lying in the lead up to Absolution so who knows if it'll actually end up anything like Blood Money.

i remember reading an interview with the original hitman devs or it was something on their site, saying how they would just watch a bunch of classic action movies and eat pizza, and thats where they got their ideas from. they were real proud of the particle effects in contracts when you shot everything up

real shame how i cant find this interview or company bio or whatever it was, p sure i read it around the time of blood money coming out

I'm almost glad that I don't have the "do I buy this game at launch?" dilemma simply by having a PC that barely cuts the minimum specs. It might move up the purchase of a new rig by a couple months though, since I'm a big fan of the series.

The most hilariously bad part of this mission is when Ninjas would hit each other with trucks, find the body, then blame you for the death. This seemed to happen every time I tried to do a Silent Assassin run.

I got a Silent Assassin run on that level simply by running away from guards. Apparently ninjas have some kind of honorable code where they can't kill a masked man in an underground tunnel before they've checked his ID. My favorite anecdote that involves messing with the AI is stealing the sniper rifle from the male assassin in the Mardi Gras level. As long as you kill the female assassin the hit on the politician will never take place, even if the money was delivered. Eventually the male assassin will just leave and wander towards his boss and sit in his room doing nothing.

Mierenneuker fucked around with this message at Feb 11, 2016 around 19:56

The survey they sent for the alpha a while back was basically a bunch of "hey how good did you think Blood Money was". I'm hopeful but they were pretty much outright lying in the lead up to Absolution so who knows if it'll actually end up anything like Blood Money.

Hopefully they learned their lesson with Absolution. It's not even a bad game, but it's not what we want from Hitman. What we want from Hitman is essentially a puzzle game. With shitloads of murders and wonderful physics that blasts people across rooms when you shoot them with a shotgun or your silverballers.

They have to be fairly confident about it though, because they wouldn't be giving us the chance to test the waters for a mere $15 if they thought they had to sell as many copies as possible before people catch on to the ruse.

Best levels:

1) A House Of Cards

2) Death on the Mississippi

3) A New Life

Special mention to Til Death Do Us Part for letting you shoot the target in the head and have nobody notice because they're all being hicks shooting their guns in the air.

There were only about 5 levels in Hitman 2 I could get Silent Assassin on, most of them are the early Moscow levels. Guards are just way too twitchy and suspicious in that game, even if you're on the other side of the road, walking slowly and have appropriate weapons and disguises. Contracts improved it a lot so that people didn't get suspicious quite so quickly and then Blood Money arguably made it a little too easy by making you get no suspicion unless you're in an area you're not supposed to be.

Traditions of the Trade is such a great mission. Codename 47 is still a great game in spots if you have tolerance for old school game jank. Just ignore some of the levels like.... Most of them.

This has always been one of my tip top favorite series (it's a loving murder-themed puzzle game!) and as long as we pretend Absolution doesn't exist it's one of the best series of all time. I'm BEYOND excited for the new title but I had a friend who invited me over after he got alpha access and let me play it. It's pretty much Blood Money 2 with some sensibilities learned from Absolution. It's real good. Sadly without Kyd doing the soundtrack it might as well be garbage.

Here's something OP-worthy:

The Steam version of Contracts is FINALLY back (after licensing issues with one of my favorite bands, Clutch) but it has a gamebreaking bug in that IT HAS NO SAVE FOLDER! But this is fix-able. Navigate to your Contracts directory (Steam/Steamapps/common/Hitman Contracts/) and just create a new folder called "save". Done, now the game will properly save and you can stop restarting from step one like it's an NES title.

There were only about 5 levels in Hitman 2 I could get Silent Assassin on, most of them are the early Moscow levels. Guards are just way too twitchy and suspicious in that game, even if you're on the other side of the road, walking slowly and have appropriate weapons and disguises. Contracts improved it a lot so that people didn't get suspicious quite so quickly and then Blood Money arguably made it a little too easy by making you get no suspicion unless you're in an area you're not supposed to be.

That's good to hear about Contracts, I remember during my recent still-unfinished playthrough how much of a task it was to try and slip by unnoticed sometimes. At some point I'm going to get back to it and go through the other games as well.

Am I reading it right that the new Hitman is going to have 8 missions once they're all released?

It's not completely surprising since Blood Money only had 12 (not counting the murder spree funeral epilogue) and level creation only gets more expensive as time goes on but I bet that's going to be a tough sell for a lot of people, which helps explain the intro pack I guess.

I've done Silent Assassin runs on all of the Hitman 2 levels (except the intro and final level, but those don't even have scores). The healthcare spa level took me the longest, because the AI would always home right in on me and start shooting as soon as the guy I chloroformed for the first disguise would wake up, regardless of how many disguise changes I had since. I had to scrap several runs before the AI unfucked itself and played nice.

Am I reading it right that the new Hitman is going to have 8 missions once they're all released?

It's not completely surprising since Blood Money only had 12 (not counting the murder spree funeral epilogue) and level creation only gets more expensive as time goes on but I bet that's going to be a tough sell for a lot of people, which helps explain the intro pack I guess.

Well the levels are going to be fairly sprawling and Contracts mode from Absolution is said to make a return so you could replay through levels and do different things to get to different targets the community has set.

Am I reading it right that the new Hitman is going to have 8 missions once they're all released?

It's not completely surprising since Blood Money only had 12 (not counting the murder spree funeral epilogue) and level creation only gets more expensive as time goes on but I bet that's going to be a tough sell for a lot of people, which helps explain the intro pack I guess.

if it does well I'm sure they'll milk Hitman as a platform for more stages and poo poo.

I find the episodic choice and constant changes in "How the game is released"TM somewhat worrying. I think Square-Enix will use it as an excuse to pull development if sales aren't high enough/stay consistent/stay consistently high. The last thing I want is to be left with half a Hitman game.

It would be a hilariously scumfucker move to quit halfway with a game this big. So far impressions are good enough that I doubt it will come to that but I guess we'll see, beta is tomorrow. I have access to that but not sure who else was as daring to at least get the Intro Pack for that.

i just realised how at the end of every hitman game is a set piece where you just shoot every fucker on the map, except in absolution where they made it trivial but it was still somewhat fun

This wasn't in contracts. Instead, we got a interesting Leon:The Professional homage which played a bit weird. I could never kill the target in that level stealthily without either exploiting the AI or the game glitching in some way.

Contracts mode was the best idea put into the least-suited Hitman game. It actually has a ton of potential in this game if they're building the levels like they say they are.

I think people sell Absolution's stealth short. Previously, unless you were some kind of wizard savant that took the time to memorize everything, you couldn't really stealth through a level with just your suit. I remember in contracts mode, I had to do a mission where I had to kill someone while wearing the chipmunk suit.

blackguy32 fucked around with this message at Feb 11, 2016 around 20:39